28 of us walking today
It should have
been 30, but fortunately two dropped out
It’s not too much
of a problem, because they all know each other
And no one is
likely to get lost of a valley walk
Once more we had
lovely walking weather
Despite having
some scattered rain all week
This was Gary’s
last walk with the group; he has bought a property down south
It was nice to see
Duncan and Marilyn again
They arrived
yesterday, but wanted to get out as soon as possible
It is also the
last walk for Ann and Peter for this visit
It was really nice
to meet up with them again after many years
Everyone was very quiet
walking across the bee hive field and no problems this time
The river was not
as deep as I had feared it might be
Most followed me
in walking across
But a few brave,
or fool-hardy ones, did the obstacle course
We had a short
break and I gave Jan a ring to meet us at the font in Parcent
Her hip is very
painful and she did not want to risk the whole 9km
But did feel up to
walking down to the font and then with us to Alcalali
Lynn and Barry
seemed to be enjoying the walk, after a break of a few weeks
Jan joined us at
the font just after we arrived there
Valencia had
decreed a five minute silence at 1200 for victims of the terrible flood
And we had our own
during our picnic break at the font
The flood was last
Tuesday, but they are still finding bodies in the wide spread destruction
caused by the water
It is only 116 km
from Parcent to Valencia, and it could so easily have been our Jalon valley
which suffered the damage.
It was a more
subdued group which set off on the last leg back to Alcalali
But it was not long
before there was the usual hum of chatter
With such a large
group it is difficult to keep aware of what is happening at the back
And the bigger the
group the easier to push the pace and forget the slower ones at the back
So we have
frequent water/photo stops to allow everyone to recover
And they are quick
to tell me if the pace is too fast
Jan often walks at
the front to make sure I keep the pace down
Because it is easy
to forget the pace if I get talking with one of the faster walkers
We had
a very short water stop at the Ermita
We needed to
decide where to have our after walk drink in Alcalali
Both bars in the
square are closed because of the extensive road works
The two alternatives
were No Nombre and Musette
We had heard not
very good reports about No Nombre
Musette is a cycle
cafe and there is not very much space
We decided on No
Nombre and were very pleasantly surprised
Very friendly host
and lots of space for our larger than normal group
Temperature – 16-19c
Time Taken – 3
hours
Distance – 9 km
